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Issue: The Dean of Hampton University’s Business School, a historically black school, has banned MBA students from wearing cornrows or dreadlocks on the basis that individuals with cornrows and dreadlocks are not ‘businesslike,’ and the strict hair policy will help students land jobs.

“We’ve been very successful,” Business School Dean Sid Credle said. “We’ve placed more than 99 percent of the students who have graduated from this school.” Credle says the hair policy has nothing to do with black culture. “When was it that cornrows and dreadlocks were a part of African-American history” he said. “I mean, Charles Drew didn’t wear it, Muhammad Ali didn’t wear it, Martin Luther King didn’t wear it.” Credle says business students should look like businessmen. “If you’re going to play baseball, you wear baseball uniforms,” he said. “If you’re going to play tennis, you wear a tennis uniform. Well, you’re playing that business.”

Question: Are braids or dreadlocks “unprofessional” and inappropriate in the workplace?

Ryan Mitchell

To hear an HBCU of all places has this unjust policy disturbs me. I bet if those MBA students took their money elsewhere, he would change his tone. Saying dreadlocks aren’t a historically professional look or have no place in African-American history is way off.

Jamie Ritter

Whether black people straighten, curl, or loc their hair, at the end of the day white people know that black people are black. The Dean’s comments are pathetic, ignorant and insensitive. I think locs are perfectly acceptable in the professional world.

Kelly Parker

People can wear their hair however they want. If that affects their job prospects, that’s a risk they should be able to take. I personally don’t think natural hair or locs are unprofessional.

Erica Lyons

This is not a matter of image. Yes, image matters, but so does freedom. A person has a right to wear their hair as they please. People go to college for an education, not on rules on how to dress. Perfectly professional, intelligent and competent people can choose to wear dreads or braids.